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DFSA Warns Internauts about Fake Email Campaigns

Zawya.com reported on 9th October, 2013 that Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has recently issued a security alert about a scam campaign facilitated by two fraudulent email IDs - one from Gmail and the other from zbavitu.net, "falsely claiming to be from His Excellency 'Abdullah Mohammed Saleh', Governor of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)."

Notably, the DFSA is the independent regulator of all financial and ancillary services conducted through DIFC (Dubai International Financial Center) in Dubai.

As accords to the alert raised by the DFSA, the fake emails recommend that DIFC is in quest of to enlarge and relocate its trade abroad into many sectors and bid to supply finance for any projects of private sector exterior to the Gulf region. The offered investment through such scam emails is a 5-year renewable loan with interest being charged at 3% annually.

The second email purports to start off from 'Mr. Al Qemzi' who is a member of DIFC's board offering loans of 50 million USD to involved parties for ten years "renewable duration" at interest being charged at 6% annually. Fascinated parties were told to pay a charge of 5,500 Pound (DH32, 471) for assisting the loan.

Zawya.com published a warning by DFSA on 9th October, 2013 stating "The DFSA robustly advises not to respond to any such emails and under no conditions should anyone send money."

Moreover, the DFSA notes that the governor of DIFC "does not correspond via "zbavitu.net", "gmail.com<http://gmail.com>" or any other such email addresses" and that "the masterminds for this scam have misused the name of His Excellency, 'Abdullah Mohammed Saleh', without his prior permission for a wicked purpose."

Finally, it is not the first time that cyber crooks have targeted the name and reputation of DFSA and DIFC. In March 2013, fake emails were mailed to managers, CEOs and directors of companies alerting them that fake emails were connected to structured crime offering loan amount between US$2.5 million to US$5 million at yearly interest rates of 3.5% for project-management programs.